


The Treasure Hunters

by Britpacker



Series: A Narnian Summer [3]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Gen, Post-Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-09-25 09:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17119139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Back in Narnia after the Voyage of the Dawn Treader Lucy, Edmund and Eustace are enjoying an idyllic summer. An act of kindness leads to adventure for the children, Caspian and Drinian.





	1. Damsel In Distress

The sound of laughter echoed from the ancient oaks, beech and chestnuts of the Narnian woods. Five people - two tall young men and three children, a golden-haired girl and two boys – ambled together along the defined, pebble-edged path through sunlit glades toward the coast. “Goodness!” cried the girl in a high, trilling voice. “I’d quite forgotten how _busy_ market day can be!”

“So ’d I, Lu,” said the elder of the boys, an alert-looking lad with just enough resemblance about the eyes and mouth to be identified as her brother. “Still, it’s good to get out and about, Caspian: and to see you weren’t exaggerating when you said Narnia’s prospering again.”

The smaller of the two men, handsome like his friend and as fair as the other was dark, lifted his hands. “One must allow a king to boast of his accomplishments Edmund – you of all people know that!” he said cheerfully. “Lion bless me, what commotion is this? I do believe there’s someone clambering about in that great chestnut tree ahead!”

“Help!” wailed a female voice from deep within the lush green canopy spreading from the tree in question across the centre of the glade. “Travellers, whomever you may be, pray pause and help me!”

“I know that voice!” cried the dark-haired man, starting forward from his friends with eyes narrowed and lofty head tipped back. “Lady Herringbone! What do you _do_ , scrambling about in a tree!”

“Oh! My Lord!” A rosy face topped by a tangle of looping brown curls peeped between branches. “Aslan be thanked, I – oh! Your Majesty, crave pardon! Not for worlds would I have addressed Your Highness so roughly…”

“Good lady, never mind our royal sensibilities: only tell us what you do, and how we may be of service!” cried King Caspian the Tenth, much astonished. “My Lord Drinian…”

“’Tis all the doing of my abominable brother Tamarin, Sire,” moaned the distressed lady. “He stole my precious sewing box – you must know of it, my Lord, for I’m sure your wife, my very dear friend, has spoken of how dear it is to me!”

“The ancient Archenlandish box?” Drinian, lord of the great northern province of Etinsmere, somehow contrived to maintain a perfectly serious mien. Yes, his young wife had told the tale of the antique box exactly as it had been told to her (for Daniela was a remarkably fine mimic) with all its exclamation points and underlining’s included. “A fair prize for the young master to seize, but for what purpose?”

“I tell the wretch never to touch something and he _must_ at once have his grubby fingers all over it!” Master Tamarin’s sister declared. “He confessed – as he fled the house! – to concealing it here. I have it but now… how am I ever to get _down_ without doing it harm or breaking both my legs!”

“Toss the box down for us to catch,” Lucy suggested earnestly. The other’s hazel eyes almost popped.

“Oh, but if it were to be dropped, I should be… you _will_ be careful? ‘Tis so very old and precious, I…”

“Too precious to be left in a tree, and I see small other hope of getting both you and it down than the method Queen Lucy suggests.” Drinian’s stern tone at least stopped another outpouring of incoherent alarms. “Now, my Lady, let the box fall on my command! We shall stand ready; and the moment we have it caught, we may begin to consider some method of rescuing you.”

Alicia, Lady Herringbone (to give the lady in the tree her full name) thought for a moment, then gave way. “Can you see it?” she asked anxiously, shaking something until the twigs and leaves around her trembled. Edmund gave a sudden yelp.

“ _I_ can!” he exclaimed, pointing excitedly. “Right above your head Scrubb, see? Gather round everyone! Caspian – Lu, move a touch to the left, will you? Right! One of us is sure to catch it now!”

The five on the ground formed themselves into a tight knot, arms upraised. “Oh, dear!” cried the lady in the tree. “Oh, _do_ please be careful! Oh, _dear!_ ”

With a rustling shower of leaves and the snapping of small twigs, the Herringbone household’s pride and joy dropped heavily toward the earth. Five pairs of hands snatched eagerly at the air. “Oh, well _held_ Ed!” cried Lucy.

Triumphant, he brandished his trophy. “No harm done, Lady Herringbone!” he promised the lady, who seemed close to fainting form her perch with relief. “Now you can use both hands, can you find a way down?”

“Oh, dear!” It seemed to be all she could say. The group on the ground heard the sounds of frantic kicking and scrabbling against the tree trunk. Another shower of fresh foliage drifted down to catch in their hair. “Oh, goodness me! No, King Edmund, I appear to be completely stuck.”

Caspian and Drinian shared a speaking look. “Remain quite still, Ma’am,” Drinian instructed, as sharp as if the young woman were an especially hapless member of his crew aboard the royal galleon _Dawn Treader_. “If Your Majesty would be so kind as to hold my cloak, I’ll go aloft, see what can be done.”

Caspian tossed the short blue mantle across his arm and, nimble as a monkey, Drinian launched himself up into the branches. “Now, Ma’am,” they heard him say soothingly from the canopy over their heads. “Bring the left hand back toward me, _that’s_ right. Right foot down slowly, that’s the way!”

“Oh, dear!” cried Lady Herringbone. “Oh, when I get my hands on that hateful little beast… oh! Oh, I have a foothold now, I see! Oh, thank you, my Lord, I shall be quite all right now I’m sure! Oh goodness me, I do feel giddy!”

Drinian slithered down first, turning to offer a steadying hand to the lady who, hindered by her long gown, huffed and panted her confused way to safety in his wake. With a great rent torn down the side of her yellow skirt and leaves dripping from her curls Alicia, Lady Herringbone, half-fell into a curtsy before her sovereign.

“Oh, Sire!” she gasped, fanning her grimy face with one hand. “Your Majesties – young master - my Lord – thank you all so much, I really do feel quite faint! Pray overlook my rude manner in so hailing you…”

“Think no more of it, my dear lady,” said Caspian placatingly. He steered her toward a grassy knoll, urging her to sit (which she did with a heavy thud). “Rest and recover your breath a moment! Now, this scapegrace, your brother…”

“Barely fourteen, Your Majesty, and mischievous as a bagful of monkeys,” the lady declared, suddenly quite fierce. Her gaze shifted from the eminent personages clustering to the small, scuffed box being clutched protectively close to Edmund’s chest. “This is our greatest treasure – well does he know its value! Your Majesty – King Edmund, if I may…”

“Oh, yes, of course.” If this battered wooden tub was her household’s most precious item Edmund decided, discreetly studying her long, fleshy fingers for rings, it must be a pretty miserable one!

As he passed it into her outstretched palms a fingernail, broken in making the catch, snagged on a crack in the wood. They heard a tiny scraping sound; then slowly, reluctantly, a portion of timber at the box’s base creaked away from the rest.

“Oh Ed! You’ve broken it!” said his sister reproachfully. “Look!”

Horror-stricken, everyone stared. “I don’t think there’s any damage,” said Eustace eventually. “Look closer: it’s a secret drawer! You must have caught the release mechanism, Edmund!”

“Aslan’s Mane!” cried Lady Herringbone. “This box has been in the possession of my ancestors these two centuries at least, and I’m sure they never knew… How very _clever_ of you, Sire, to find such a thing!”

“I do believe there’s something inside!” said Lucy excitedly, bending to peer more closely into the shallow tray.

“Looks like parchment,” Edmund decided, frowning. “Lady Herringbone, may I…”

“Be my guest, Your Majesty! I’m sure it’s naught of use to me!”

“Thank you.” Very carefully, half expecting the fragile object to crumble beneath his touch, Edmund levered the folded yellowing sheet from its hiding place. “Glory! I wonder how old it is? Hear how it crackles! It could be really ancient!”

“The box is six hundred years and more old, Your Majesty.” Alicia Herringbone, as Drinian’s wife could have warned them (had she been of their party and not back at the castle of Cair Paravel in the company of Caspian’s new queen, awaiting their return) could out-chatter Pattertwig and all his troupe of Talking Squirrels on a topic that truly interested her. “It was given to my great-great-great – oh, I forget how many times great - grandmother by an admirer - an Archenlander. Of its history before that we know little. ‘Tis said it was made by a sailor and passed down through his relations until his descendant gave it to mine. It was said, you know…”

Lucy nodded politely, allowing the young woman’s high-pitched enthusiastic chatter to drift through the back of her mind. Edmund, she noticed, was fondling the aged parchment with unconcealed admiration. _No points for guessing_ , she thought, just as he seized the moment of the lady’s brief pause for breath to make his request.

“I wonder, would you let me take this old scrap?” he asked, trying (and failing quite miserably in Caspian’s opinion) to keep the eagerness from his voice. “I rather like _very_ old things.”

“Take it and be welcome, Sire.” Hugging her treasure to herself, Lady Herringbone had not the least interest in a dirty piece of long-forgotten parchment. “My Lord Drinian, are you not ashamed of yourself? It must be ages since I enjoyed the company of my dear friend Daniela! Do you mean to deprive your wife of _all_ her old friends’ company?”

“That, Ma’am, I should never dare attempt,” replied the gentleman with perfect solemnity. “Ah! Master Tamarin loiters in the bushes yonder, looking for the result of his mischief. Fly, young master! I should be quaking now, were I in your boots!”

“Tamarin! Why, you spawn of the devil Tash, I’ll give you such a thrashing you shan’t sit down for a week!” Still clinging to her beloved box Lady Herringbone fairly sprang to her feet and raced in pursuit of a flash of dull brown in the undergrowth Lucy presumed to be her incorrigible brother. “Come back here _at once!_ ”


	2. Anna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edmund’s fascination with that dog-eared bit of parchment suddenly becomes a lot more understandable…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In deference to the influence of that (I own the opinion, nothing else) quite atrocious film version, I've amended my original name for Caspian's queen to match.

“What a very _odd_ creature!” exclaimed Eustace when, with the lady’s shrill screeches fading away, they continued their ambling way toward home. “Whoever is she, Drinian?”

“Alicia Casker she was born: daughter to a prosperous merchant of Glasswater village,” the dark-haired Narnian replied. “After the murder of her father, you know that Daniela was confined with her mother and sister, almost a prisoner in her own province. The daughters of honest folk like the Caskers were their only company.”

“How ghastly for her!” said Edmund, with more truth than tact. Lucy tutted.

“Honestly Ed, I’m sure she’s a dear really!” she protested. Eustace sniggered.

“While we were sailing east, she married a gentleman of Beaversdam,” Drinian continued, retrieving his unwanted cloak from the King and tossing it carelessly over one shoulder. “Daniela declares the acquisition of a title – albeit a very minor one - quite turned the lady’s head. She’ll not be pleased that by our interference an invitation she cannot decently turn down’s been made.”

“Blame me, Drinian,” Caspian volunteered at once.

“Begging Your Majesty’s pardon, I was already intending to! We ought to make haste now, though. We’re expected in the Council Chamber within the hour.”

“Eh?” Caspian frowned. “Hang it! Those tedious ambassadors from Galma!”

“Had Your Majesty not offended their Duke…”

“By not marrying his squinting daughter,” Eustace continued helpfully.

“And then bringing the future Queen of Narnia to his banqueting hall on the way home,” added Edmund. 

“Our relations with that pestilential island might have been less strained of late,” Drinian concluded solemnly. Caspian threw up his hands.

“Very well, _very well!_ ‘Tis all my fault we must waste a glorious afternoon with those two pompous monstrosities! Now, no more of this dawdling, lest by arriving late in Our own council chamber We contrive to offend these prickling Galmians even further!”

*

“I don’t know what on Earth you wanted that filthy crumpled scrap for,” Eustace informed his cousin as he flopped onto Lucy’s bed in the Great Lion guest chamber, high in one of the fairy-tale towers of Caspian’s great castle of Cair Paravel. “It even _smells_ nasty!”

“If you’d been stuck in a drawer for hundred of years you’d not exactly smell of lilies yourself, Scrubb!”

“Oh, _honestly!_ ” cried Lucy, who was squeezed onto the very foot of the bed while he sprawled. “ _Boys!_ Is there anything written on it, Ed?”

He lifted the faded parchment to the window, letting light stream through the brittle square. “There are _lines_ , I think,” said Eustace. “But – well, if there are letters, _I_ can’t see them!”

“What’s that?” With the tip of a finger Edmund grazed the faintest smear of ancient ink, better felt than seen after so many years.

“It looks like – well, it’s a squiggle!” said Eustace.

“Could it be a map?” Lucy wondered, squinting as badly as the Duke of Galma’s unfortunate daughter. “Ugh! It’s horribly dusty, too!”

Edmund perched himself uncomfortably on the narrow window sill, turning his prize this way and that. “By Jove Lu, I think you’re right!” he cried, delighted. “See? That turning line might _just_ be a stretch of coastline. I wonder if we couldn’t compare it with some of Drinian’s charts, see if we can’t identify…”

“Hi! I think there _might_ be a few fragments of writing in the top left corner.” Eustace positively launched himself off the bed. “See? Just there!”

Three tousled heads bent over the ancient document. “You’re blocking the light,” Edmund objected. Nobody moved.

“That’s an A,” Lucy announced confidently, afraid to even breathe on the parchment, still less touch it.

“In that case, so’s that.” Eustace was less delicate and with a huff, Edmund snatched his trophy away from his grasping hand. “Looks like it might be the end of the word: that’s a pretty fancy scribble at the bottom of it!”

“The two in the middle look similar.” Edmund had to twist his neck painfully for the best view. “The tops of M’s, perhaps?”

“Amma? What kind of word is that?” Eustace scoffed. “Anyway, they look more like N’s to me!”

“Anna, then?” Lucy’s forehead furrowed. Eustace gave vent to a long, low whistle

“You don’t think…” he stammered. “I mean, it couldn’t _actually_ be…”

Edmund’s mouth flapped. His shoulders heaved.

“Couldn’t be what?” Lucy squealed, looking worried. “Stop being so _mysterious!_ ”

“Anna. A map. _Think_ , Lu!” Edmund seemed undecided whether he should leap about like a mad thing or fall in a heap. “Don’t you remember the story Drinian told, that night on Dragon Island?”

“The Fair Maid of Terebinthia and – oh!” Lucy sat down heavily. “There was supposed to have been a map made, wasn’t there?” she finished weakly.

“A map that’s not been seen in centuries,” Eustace continued. “Made by the last man to know where Anna’s treasure had been hidden. Just imagine – suppose _we_ have it now!”

“Nonsense!” said Edmund, with much less conviction than he intended. “I mean, it’s impossible! The treasure story’s just an ancient legend.”

“Lots of ancient legends have some kind of truth behind them,” Lucy argued reasonably. “When Caspian’s nurse was telling him bedtime stories about the White Witch and the Four Sovereigns of Narnia he thought _we_ were characters in an ancient legend, too!”

“And if this _is_ the map… golly Lu, it’s almost as old as we are!”

Three bright young faces split with identical bedazzled grins. “We’ve _got_ to tell Caspian and Drinian,” said Lucy.

“Let’s go!” Eustace was halfway to the door already.

“We can’t,” said Edmund sharply. “They’re in the Council Chamber.”

“They might have finished with the ambassadors by now.” Eustace argued.

“Or we can wait outside in the Receiving Room,” added Lucy.

“All right, you’ve convinced me.” Three long strides had Edmund through the door before the others could block his path. “Bother!” he added. “They’re right at the other side of the castle.”

“Then we’d better run for it!” yelled Eustace, bolting past. On yelps of exuberant outrage his cousins followed him, almost knocking the pretty young servant coming up the main stair straight back down again. 

“Sorry!” Lucy yelled politely. “Ed, wait for me!”

Down the Great Stair and across the Entrance Hall, into the First Reception Chamber with its gilded Lion on the ceiling and bright murals depicting Aslan’s visits on the walls. Though huge double doors and into the Throne Room (where the seats of the Four Sovereigns still stood) without pause to admire the vistas of the glinting ocean through the big east-facing windows. Beyond the small set of doors behind the thrones and across the hall, into a much smaller, cosier chamber with comfortable chairs, and pastoral tapestries on the walls.

“Aslan’s Mane! Your Majesties!” cried the dainty, chestnut-haired lady who started up from the high-backed seat placed nearest the windows. “Is the Cair afire?”

“Daniela, we’ve found a treasure map!”

The Mistress of Etinsmere’s calmness was but one of the many qualities admired by her lord. “Indeed, Eustace?” was all she said as golden, graceful Queen Liliandil, the Star’s Daughter, goggled.

“It says _Anna_ on it,” Lucy affirmed. What had seemed impossible in her bedroom appeared now as absolutely inescapable fact.

“Anna?” The Queen rose elegantly, a quizzical gaze firmly fixed on her Narnian friend. “I hardly see what connection… Daniela, why do you stare so?”

“Impossible!” the lady exclaimed. Edmund shrugged.

“That’s exactly what we’ve tried telling ourselves! Are they still rabbiting at the Galmians?”

“Doctor Cornelius has escorted the ambassadors to their apartments,” said the Queen, hiding her confusion at the term (the Narnians would call it _squirrelling_ , Lucy remembered) admirably. “But what ever is the urgency? Daniela, I do not understand!”

“Caspian! Drinian! You’ve got to come out at once!” Lucy hollered, banging on the Council Chamber’s firmly closed door. It was dragged inward and there, quite level with hers, were a pair of bushy fox-coloured eyebrows drawn tightly together. Trumpkin, Caspian’s first Dwarf ally and Regent of the Kingdom during his master’s long absence on the Eastern Quest, rocked back on his heels, not unnaturally startled to find an ancient Queen of Narnia yelling into his face.

“Where’s the fire, Your Majesty?” he bellowed. Behind him Lucy could see the remainder of the Inner Council – Trufflehunter, the aged Badger; Drinian; and the King himself, all half out of their seats in poses of the greatest alarm. “Kingfishers and kettledrums, are we under attack? King Edmund, why must you be wavin’ that filthy piece o’ rubbish about?”

“It’s a treasure map!” Eustace yelled, as if it ought to be obvious. “Edmund got it from that batty Kipperbone woman!”

“Alicia Herringbone,” Daniela translated, for the benefit of the Queen. Liliandil nodded her understanding.

“I shall never look at her again without thinking that, Eustace,” she sighed. “But _please_ , can someone not explain to me what this is about?” 

“Look!” Edmund lifted the parchment high, letting the light flooding through large windows stream through its delicate creases. “In the top left corner – it says a name!”

“ _I_ can’t see anything,” said the King crossly. “And what if it _does_ have a name on it?”

“Honestly Caspian, how _dense_ are you?” cried Eustace, red in the face with exasperated excitement. “Anna’s treasure!”

“What – oh!” The King of Narnia blinked, then stared, like a man roused suddenly from the deepest of sleep. “Drinian…”

“Sounds unlikely to me, Sire. A few letters on a torn parchment…”

“But it’s not impossible!” He _couldn’t_ say that, Lucy told herself desperately. 

“If there ever _was_ a map,” Drinian mused, scratching his chin thoughtfully, “there might be thought a high chance of it being Archenlandish in origin. The sailors of the treasure ships, _and_ the bulk o’ the largest pirate fleet, were likely Archenlanders.”

Straining to make out the faintest markings, he jabbed a long finger. “See, Caspian!” he said absently, quite oblivious to the horrified snorts of Trumpkin and Trufflehunter loitering forgotten at the door, to whom the small informality was quite scandalous. “They _are_ right about its being a chart – that must be a headland! See!”

“Can someone not tell me who _Anna_ is, and what her treasure might be?” wailed Queen Liliandil. Caspian turned a fond smile her way.

“My Lord Drinian can tell the tale best of those present,” he said comfortably. “Aye, be about your business Trumpkin – Sir Trufflehunter, my thanks as ever for your wise counsel. Now, sit down everyone – and _do_ be careful with that Edmund! If it should be a treasure map ‘tis not a toy to be lightly tossed about! At your leisure, old friend, we shall have the tale of the Fair Maid of Terebinthia and the lost treasure of King Ram.”


	3. Drinian Spins A Yarn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who, exactly, was Anna? What was her treasure? A sailor's tall tale is told by a sailor...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that started the entire fic. I wrote it originally as a fantastical story for Drinian to tell his shipmates during the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, then started to think: what if?

The three children squeezed themselves together on a single low couch while Caspian perched on the arm of his consort’s chair. Drinian considered with head cocked for a moment: then plucked his wife delicately from her seat and dropped himself down into it, drawing Daniela onto his lap. “It all happened many hundreds of years ago, Your Majesty,” he said, addressing himself to the sole occupant of the room unfamiliar with the tale he had to tell. Lightly playing with the unruly curl of raven hair that fell in defiance of any comb’s command across his forehead, Daniela snuffled her agreement.

“At a time,” Drinian continued, “when the kingdom of Archenland was the grandest, richest and most powerful of all the realms in the world. Her treasure houses burst with gold and silver. More emeralds, rubies and pearls were reported within her borders than were owned by all the other countries of the Known World (this to a Narnian queen from an island only newly discovered by her subjects) joined together. And all this vastness was ruled over by the longest-reigning sovereign ever known: King Ram.

“This Ram, you see, had been king for ninety years, and not a subject of the realm could recall another liege lord. More by luck than judgement, his reign had been prosperous: indeed, to this day the bards of our neighbours still sing of his time as their Golden Age. But over the splendour there hung a shadow, one that darkened with the passing years. For, though thrice married to ladies of the highest renown, King Ram had no heir.

“The wise, that knew better than to credit tales of their master’s immortality (a gift, so the foolish thought, bequeathed by his great-grandmother, the Calormene Queen Aravis), looked to the future with dread. And Ram, though hardly the cleverest ever to wear a crown, knew it and feared with them.”

He paused, scanning the intent faces of his audience, one by one. Satisfied of their attention he pressed on in the low, rhythmical tones of the born storyteller.

“Thus he decided, almost forty years after the death of his third wife, that he must wed again. Emissaries were despatched to all points o’ the compass to cry the news, and from the list of candidates returned by them, Ram chose to honour one Anna, daughter to the King of Terebinthia, with his proposals.

“This Anna had seen scarce eighteen summers, and was held to be the most beautiful girl in the world. She was – understandably, I’ll say before Queen Lucy can – reluctant to consent to marriage with a man the better part of a century her elder, even for all the jewels a Consort of Archenland might enjoy. Her father had few such scruples.

“When approached by King Ram’s ambassadors, he confessed a becoming degree of reluctance. Anna was, he declared, the light of his declining years (he was, of course, many decades younger than her suitor), and he was loath to let her pass across the sea. However, should his Archenlandish Majesty not consider it too bold for a modest man, he would assent to the marriage... at a price.

“If the ancient King of Archenland would send half the treasures of his kingdom, the Terebinthian declared, then he would give his only daughter in return. And Ram – though many of his subjects objected that no bride could be worth beggaring the realm for – was so inflamed by the prospect of making the legendary beauty his wife that he consented, and began immediately to make preparation for the lady’s arrival.

“A new galleon, to be named the _Fair Maid of Terebinthia_ in her honour, was laid down. With the three lords closest in his counsels, Ram passed the summer days beneath ground in his enormous treasure chambers selecting the choicest of his possessions, all to be given in return for the jewel he coveted most - the Lady Anna herself.”

“That poor child!” breathed Queen Liliandil. Lucy, resolutely resisting the urge to abuse the long-dead King of Terebinthia for the sale of his daughter, nodded vigorously.

Drinian smiled at the ladies’ unanimous opinion. “It so happened,” he went on, shifting Daniela to a more settled position where her head could pillow better against his shoulder, “that the three lords most favoured by Ram – the Ancient, never the Wise – were among the most avaricious creatures in the kingdom. The Lords Barin, Topazio and Haslin had risen high (and been greatly rewarded) in his service. And each man would – little enough to their credit! – have continued so, had not the sailing of the mighty treasure fleet offered a bold man the opportunity to steal away half his master’s wealth for himself.”

The Queen expelled a small hiss of horror, the hand that had lain limp against Caspian’s cheek flexing to leave the tiniest scrape against carefully shaven skin. Barely aware of what she did, her eyes not leaving the tranquil face of the narrator, she rubbed the offended area with her finger’s pad.

“The seas betwixt Archerland and the Fair Maid’s home were – of course – treacherous,” Drinian reminded them. “Pirates and wreckers might slip from any bay or any cove: and the King had made no secret of his preparations, so a shrewd man might easily take advantage. So, even as they sought to press upon their sovereign ever greater trinkets for despatch to Terebinthia each lord made, under cover of night, his own more secret plan.”

The sun had begun to sink, making the room chilly. Not wishing to disturb the servants or distract Drinian from his tale, Caspian slipped down from his perch and attended to the fire himself, while Edmund shut the single window that had been allowing a soft breeze to ruffle their hair. Drinian waited until they were settled again before resuming his quiet tale.

“The Lord Barin held the most favourable position. Lord Admiral of Archenland, he was a fine sailor, appointed – of course – to command the treasure fleet. He was also kin – either the half-brother or the cousin, none seems to know for a certainty – of the most notorious of all the Northern pirates: one Barosio, who commanded – in a manner of speaking – some eighteen sail. So, to Barosio did Barin send his plan.

“The fleet would beat against the prevailing southerly current off the mouth of the Winding Arrow, tacking north around the archipelago of islands clustered there before striking east for Port Terebinthia (then as now the island’s capital, and the greatest nest o’ pirates and villains – beg pardon, I forget myself) on the sheltered western side of the island, aiming to pass the Thirty League Rocks on the fifth or sixth day out. Nor’east of the rocks Barosio would lurk, ready to sweep down on the summer winds and seize the treasure. Barin promised his relation an equal share of the booty and that (altho’ I hardly doubt he had other plans) Barosio claimed he would accept.

“The Lord Topazio, who had once served his sovereign as ambassador to the court of the Tisrocs, sent word south to a blackguard he had encountered in Tashbaan: one Arok, called the Terror o’ the Southern Seas, whose seventeen ships sailed under plain banners kept bright (it was said) by blood drawn from the throats of their victims.”

“Ugh!” said Eustace. The Queen gave a definite shudder.

Caspian draped a comforting arm over her shoulders. “ _Most_ unpleasant,” he agreed.

“Arok readied his fleet at once. What manner of bargain was offered by Topazio no man will ever know, but the lure of the greatest booty ever sent to sea was more than sufficient to stir the cut-throat. He steered his flotilla from the Bight o’ Calormen to lie off the Winding Arrow’s mouth, with intention of shadowing Barin’s ships until they reached the Rocks, a place notorious then as now for their wild seas and coral reefs, where many an unwary mariner’s come to grief. Once the treasure ships were past that dangerous area, Arok would strike.

“As to the Lord Haslin, he brought into his confidence a Terebinthian native: one of the countless scores o’ villains that island’s harboured down centuries, their names never recorded. Though by far the smallest of the three fleets – thirteen schooners at most – he would have the advantage of home waters in which to sail. The Terebinthian agree to put out on the intended sailing of King Ram’s grand fleet. 

“Looming from the sheltered western coves, he would dash Barin’s hopes of a clean run into port, cause panic among the sailors and steal away the treasure beneath the very nose of his island’s greedy king.”

“Serves him right!” muttered Lucy. Edmund rolled his eyes at the storyteller.

“Well, the great day dawned,” Drinian went on, blithely ignoring all their interruptions. “King Ram stood supported by the Lords Haslin and Topazio (for he could scarce stay upright an hour without help) to watch the grandest treasure ever entrusted to the sea leave his shores. There were many, he knew, to whom the ships’ sailing was a matter of the deepest regret, but he was serene. Aboard the galleon on its return would be the treasure he desired above all his riches: the Lady Anna, his promised bride.

“Aboard his flagship the Lord Barin, too, was content. Into his schemes he had long since brought his deputy, the sailor Zarn, with promise of great reward for his connivance. As night fell and the _Fair Maid of Terebinthia_ battled with her companions against the current to round the northern tip o’ the islands, the two plotted luxurious futures. Like his colleagues ashore, Barin believed mere days stood between himself and possession of the greatest fortune ever to fall into the hands of a single man.”

He ceased speaking. In fact, he was silent for so long that Lucy began to wonder if he had forgotten the tale he told so well. Daniela lifted her head from his shoulder to fix him with a quizzical stare. 

With an apologetic smile, Drinian gathered his thoughts and carried on.

“All was calm for five days, and the sixth morning found the five ships – three galleons and two gigantic carracks (floating platforms for war catapults, as Your Majesties would know far better than I) – steering well north to evade the most dangerous of the reefs. At dawn Zarn sent the lookouts aloft, and down came the hail he and his commander anticipated. _Sail in sight!_

“Barin gave the orders expected of him, sending a flurry of signals racing up the halyards. Barosio had changed his plans he decided, and chosen to struggle up from the south in pursuit of the flotilla. There again, as he well knew, had his kinsman been any sort o’ sailor, he would never have has cause to become a pirate.”

Eustace sniggered. Drinian winked at him.

“Well, the treasure ships gathered together, Your Majesties. The huge catapults were lashed to the carracks’ decks, stacks of chiselled stones piled by in readiness. Aboard every vessel archers raced to the taffrail or the fighting top. All sail was set. Then came the hail that identified the pursuing fleet.

“Flying from the masthead of the leading schooner was not the crossed cudgel and cutlass of Barosio, but the bloody banner of the Terror of the Southern Seas: Calormene Arok!”

Thought he had expected the news, Edmund could feel his heart begin to race. The Queen gasped, leaning forward with her great ocean-coloured eyes wide, fixed on the narrator’s impassive face.

“Now, Barin’s feigned panic was suddenly very real. Though he fought the weather to chase the treasure ships, Arok’s schooners, all with oars and with a dozen extra rogues on board to man them, made ominous speed. Barin had small choice but to pile on all sail and run direct for the nearest point of land: the Adder’s Head at the toe of Anna’s island, far away from the protected bay of Port Terebinthia itself.

“As the swift galleons bearing the bulk of the treasure ran to make good their escape, dozens of archers loosed the first flight of arrows from the carracks while the huge catapults creaked, and their shot arched toward the pirate ships. Then more masts were sighted, looming out of the spray. 

"Barosio’s rabble, to the very great relief of his kinsman, hove into sight, hard on the wind and running down straight from the uninhabited wild bays on the south-eastern side of Terebinthia.

“Now these two villains, Barosio and Arok, were mortal enemies, Your Majesties. At the sight of the other, each was diverted from the thought o’ booty by a matter more urgent: bloody revenge!

“Piling on sail, the Archenlander’s schooners struck hard into the larboard side of the Calormene hordes.”

One always knew, Lucy thought, when a sailor was thoroughly caught up in the tale he had to tell. The mariner’s term slipped out quite naturally where the more familiar (to an audience of landsfolk) word _port_ would usually be. 

“Barin – being the most natural seaman of the three commanders – took advantage of his pursuers’ squabbles. He drove straight for the land then wore ‘round: out to sea, then back again, daring the flock of disorganised little ships to follow. As the wind rose and the waves began to run high he led the rabble a merry chase, but naught he did could shake them from his lee. And then, ahead of him, he spied the taut sails of Haslin’s smaller fleet, running down from home waters in search of their prize.

“Your Majesties may picture the scene, with three small fleets of blackguards and bloodstained rogues snapping at the keels of Anna’s treasure ships. Imagine now the predicament of our treacherous Lord Admiral! Astern, attacking alternately his ships and each other, the two most feared pirate commanders of the age. Afore, cutting his course to safety, a rabble of Terebinthians. The weather turning foul; his men all in a panic. All his hope of stealing his master’s mighty fortune in ruins.”

“One cannot sympathise with him enough, my Lord,” said the Queen drily. Drinian grinned.

“Indeed not, Ma’am, but the Lord Barin had greater troubles still. Late that night, as the _Fair Maid_ led the desperate chase, the sailor Zarn slipped from his duties to the poop, where the Admiral stood with his hand on the tiller. Moonlight glinted on the blade in his hand a moment before – with a single blow – it thrust deep between Barin’s shoulders and he slumped, pierced to the heart, against the wheel. A brace of insignificant trinkets was not enough for the greedy Mate. He would have all Anna’s treasure for himself, though he must defy a trio of murderers and their cut-throats to secure it!

“The world never saw such a sea chase as this; and all the while arrows sliced through the darkness and huge rocks were launched by the catapults, splashing to merge with the spray from a rolling ocean swell. By dawn, King Ram’s proud vessels had the look of wallowing hulks. All three pirate fleets were mingled, firing on their own as often as they did their foes in the confusion. Arok, scourge of the Southern Seas, was dead; like his rival Barosio, he had lost a goodly portion of his fleet. Crippled schooners and dismasted brigs, sinking hulks, trailed as a sorry wake to Anna’s treasure. Then at first light the blackguards still pursuing caught sight of the strangest signal ever raised on a flagship’s halyard.”

Eustace tossed a fresh log into the hearth, its fierce crackle sending a shiver though his companions. Caspian stretched, lighting the single lamp on the table at his side. When none of them spoke, Drinian continued.

“Zarn you see, though as cruel and greedy as his captain, was not half such a seaman. His sole thought was for the loot in his holds and to better (he thought) protect it, he gathered his trio o’ galleons about the warships, like ducklings beneath the mother’s wings. Ordering the men to break off from battle, he would have all the gold and jewels transferred to the carracks, never recognising that in so doing he denied those ships the job they were designed for.”

“Some kind of idiot,” muttered Edmund.

“Aye, King Edmund, but Zarn had been valued by Barin (no less foolish in his way than the King that trusted him) for unthinking loyalty, not seamanship. The remaining pirates, seeing their prey left helpless, forgot their petty quarrelling. Twenty schooners and three brigs piled on all sail and swept down upon the hapless Zarn.

“It must be admitted, Your Majesties, the villain led his men gallantly in defence of his captive ships: but, outnumbered and faced by battle-tested, bloody rogues, the men of Archenland were quickly overwhelmed. Stamping on the dead and screeching abuse at the wounded, the survivors of the battle charged the holds, half-crazed for booty.

“And they found not a pearl from a pendant, nor a diamond fallen from a ring. Of the great services of gold and silver plate, the chests of coin and precious stones, not a trace remained to be stolen.”

“But… but… but…” It cheered Eustace to see the composed and clever Star’s Daughter quite as bemused by the stark pronouncement as he had ever been. “But Drinian, that is not _possible!_ Such treasures can hardly have _vanished_ into air!”

“Yet they had, Your Majesty,” he countered, looking (in his wife’s fond opinion) much too pleased with the sensation the denouement of the tale never failed to create in a new hearer. “The maddened survivors tore through every battered hulk. They tortured the wounded sailors and turned on each other in disappointed fury. When word of the disaster reached his island, the King of Terebinthia sent out every ship he could find to search, as did the Duke of Galma (another not inclined to miss the chance o’ plunder!)

“As to King Ram: well, he died of shock on the shoulder of the unfortunate sent to give him the news. The Lady Anna, delivered from a match she despised, was cast from her father’s castle a year later for the sake of a gentleman usher. A true love-match, they say. Ten children, and never enough food on the table.”

“Drinian, _really!_ ” cried Daniela, lightly smacking his hand. Liliandil laughed.

“I still say, I thought it was but _nine_ children,” muttered Caspian.

“And the greatest treasure that ever went to sea? Well, Your Majesties, no man knows what became of half the wealth of Ram the Rich. It was said there was a map, drawn by the last man that knew the secret of its resting place: but if ever there _was_ such a document beyond the realm of legend, its whereabouts have been concealed as well as the Fair Maid’s treasure itself.”

“Until now,” Eustace breathed, staring greedily at the parchment cradled in his cousin’s hands. 

“ _Perhaps_ until now,” came the sailor’s cautious reply. Three bright young faces flushed.

“It’s obviously important,” Lucy argued. “I mean, to have been hidden in a secret drawer.”

“Important, or quite insignificant,” Edmund admitted, stretching his legs closer toward the fire. “It might be no more than a centuries-old shopping list!”


	4. On The Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Assorted royal personages have bees swarming in their bonnets. A wise courtier will always know when he's beaten...

“It’s _got_ to be a map!” said Lucy stubbornly. Squinting at the document as Edmund held it before the lamp’s flickering light, Liliandil shook back her long yellow-gold hair.

“ _You_ may see it Lucy, but _I_ cannot,” she said, turning helplessly to her husband. “Caspian – what say you?”

“That it looks like random squiggles to me, though I suppose it _may_ be a coast,” he hedged. “Drinian, you are the navigator, the sailor. What do you think – truly?”

The Lord High Admiral of the realm accepted the paper from Edmund, gnawing thoughtfully on a full lower lip. “It may be so, Your Majesties,” he said slowly. “See, this line curving back on itself may be a headland. I _think_ \- yes, I _can_ feel the indentation in the parchment where the pen has scratched.”

“Let me!” Lucy begged, holding up her hand. Placing her finger where his had been, Drinian guided it and the girl’s face brightened. “Oh! Goodness you’re right, Drinian! I can feel it too!” she exclaimed. “Surely we can trace where the line should go from this, and then find the treasure!”

“Steady on, Lu!” Edmund hated to be a killjoy, but the leap from a few faded scratchings on an old scrap of parchment to a cavern glittering with long-hidden treasure was too vast for his tidy mind to make. “Drinian, this _headland_ : it’s jolly unusual, shaped like the muzzle of a snarling cat. Have you ever seen a stretch of coast like it?”

“Not that I recall Edmund, no.”

“Hold hard, mind,” said Eustace, sticking out his chin as he only did when he thought he was about to say something remarkably clever. “If the map – all right, if it _is_ a map for the sake of the wet blankets present! – is as old as the treasure story well, surely the entire coast might have changed dramatically by now – what with erosion by the sea and all that!”

“Don’t show off, Eustace,” said Lucy automatically. “It’s not polite.”

“We might check it against some charts?” Edmund suggested.

All eyes turned to the mariner in attendance. Drinian sighed.

“If you _must_ imagine the all-but impossible: aye, we might! Daniela, if you were to call on the Herringbones, Alicia might have more to tell of that confounded box and its origins.”

“And I’ve little enough choice but to call soon, with your having been fool enough to enter conversation with her!”

“My _dear_ Daniela!” cried Caspian, really shocked. “Would you have your husband and his friends leave a lady of Narnia trapped up a tree?”

“If Your Majesty was by the rescuing of her forced to sit in that overcrowded, overheated parlour listening to her breathless chattering for two hours at a stretch, you might gladly leave her there yourself!” replied the Mistress of Etinsmere with spirit. “Oh, very _well_ , there’s no evading the duty now! I shall call on her tomorrow.”

“And these charts, Drinian…”

“The best I have are stowed in my cabin.”

“We could go now?”

“For shame, Master Eustace, have you no thought for the time?”

“There’s always a sentry on duty when she’s moored close in, isn’t there?” the boy retorted. Drinian groaned.

“And if you’re all determined I should have no sleep tonight, we might very well ride to Liomead now,” he groused.

“Excellent!” Caspian clapped his hands in delight. “Drinian, yourself and Daniela must stay as our guests at Cair Paravel tonight. ‘Tis much too late to be galloping about the countryside…”

“Although the distance to Etinsmere is not half that to Lionmead Bay,” his friend pointed out wearily. Caspian sniffed.

“You must always be so _difficult_ , old friend! My dear, our friends’ rooms are always in readiness I know, but we should despatch a swift horseman north to tell the excellent Ellena she may safely lock up the manor for the night.”

“Your Majesty is most kind,” said Daniela, forestalling the protest she saw rising to her husband’s tight lips. “It _is_ late, and we rose at dawn…”

“You must not await our returning to retire,” Caspian commanded grandly. The Queen rose at once.

“I shall attend the despatch of the messenger myself, my Lord Drinian,” she said soothingly. “And your accustomed rooms stand ready at all times for your use. Daniela won’t you come with me? I must hear more of this extraordinary creature, Lady Herringbone. Is she truly _batty_ , as Eustace puts it?”

“Completely, Ma’am,” said her friend devoutly as, with smiles to their menfolk, the ladies departed the parlour. Caspian beamed.

“Well, my Lord Drinian, let’s away to our ship!” he cried, excitement making him reckless. “We have a treasure map to decipher!”

*

They rode at top speed, hugging the coast all the way to the tiny hamlet of Lionmead at the head of a wide natural bay, where the expanding Narnian fleet rested serenely at anchor. Their horses (Eustace complained loudly of the bumping with every stride they took) they tethered to iron hooks along the wharf, before clambering down into a small gig left tied to the quay, in readiness for the fleet’s commander to go aboard in any emergency.

The madcap search for a headland that may not even exist did not, to Drinian’s practical mind, amount to any such thing: but there was no reasoning with his excitable companions, and the moonlit gallop through a balmy night was undeniably exhilarating. He steered a steady course, setting Caspian and Edmund to pull on the oars, for the royal galleon swinging idly on anchors fore and aft, noting with approval the tight reefing of her great sail and the pinprick of light from a single lantern kept burning high on the fo’c’sle where the night sentry stood. Under his breath he counted off the seconds, measuring the small boat’s distance at the moment of the panicked hail. Any moment… _now!_

“Who comes?”

“At ease Peridan, and cast down the sideropes,” he called good-naturedly. They all heard the frenzied scuffling above as the sailor scrambled to oblige his captain, throwing a flimsy rope ladder over the port bow. Leading his party onto deck Drinian tossed off a careless salute, quick to put his anxious crewman’s mind at rest.

“Their Majesties require a site of my best charts, and care naught for the inconvenience of the hour,” he explained cheerfully as he accepted the proffered lantern with a grin. “We’ll be in the cabin as short a time as may be: and well done! Your conscientious performance of this tiresome duty will be remembered.”

“Aye, Cap’n. Thank ‘ee, Sir.” The lookout returned reassured to his post, peering into the still night and pondering only a moment on the odd ways of royalty.

Drinian hurried his party aft and into the austere box close to the wheel which he occupied at sea, lighting a second lamp that hung by the door from the one he carried. Four windblown heads bents over his desk as he unrolled first one chart, then another, laying them out with curled edges held down by two polished blue-grey pebbles.

“Taking account of the probable origin of cartographer and chart,” he said, dipping his raven head to the level of theirs, “I’d wager on _this_ being the likeliest location of our distinctive headlands: here, off the mouth of the Winding Arrow. There are scores of small islands, some of ‘em not more than rocks, and all uninhabited. This is the best chart I have, that belonged to my uncle when he was admiral of their fleet. I doubt any man ever troubled to mark them in greater detail!”

“No help to us, then,” said Eustace gloomily.

“And one can’t pick out a single landmark among all those dots,” Edmund mourned. “The snarling cat could be on any of them and we’d _never_ work it out!”

“Perhaps not.” Drinian smoothed the second, larger map. “Still, if we were to discount the islands off Archenland, this archipelago – that’s the term for a group of islands Caspian, it ill-behoves a King o’ Narnia to display such ignorance! - would be my next guess.”

“The islands in the southernmost reaches of the Great Ocean?” Edmund scratched his chin. “But if the treasure’s in Calormene waters, how would the map find its way into an Archenlandish sewing box?”

“And what does it matter to us anyway?” wailed Lucy. “Even if that horrid scrap of parchment _is_ a treasure map, _we’re_ never going to find it! Oh, I know Ed! It’s lovely to dream, but even if we _have_ got the map, it’s no use to us at all!”

They all looked so thoroughly woebegone that Drinian had to laugh. “There seems to me only one way to test our speculations, Your Majesties,” he spluttered, trying in vain to calm himself under their scandalised stares. “We shall have to cruise the islands and look with our own eyes for a point that resembles this bad-tempered feline!”

“Could we?” said Lucy, awed.

“Should we?” asked Eustace.

“When can we?” demanded Edmund, barely containing the urge to dance around the cramped cabin for joy.

Caspian looked from one bright, hopeful face to the next before turning his serious gaze to the amused one of his oldest ally. “You cannot suggest, my Lord Drinian, that we take the Dawn Treader uninvited into the territorial waters of our nearest neighbour and, all banners flying, scour the countless islands in her possession for a glimpse of this - possibly mythical - _snarling cat_?”

“The Dawn Treader may be a touch unwieldy for such an enterprise, Sire: and the Lion’s banner would assuredly draw unwanted attention even from the dullards that man King Corin’s fleet. But – if you’re all so adamant there’s a treasure to be found thereabout – our only hope of discovering it must be to search for ourselves.”

“It has been Our intention for some time that the Queen be made familiar with the more southerly provinces of Our realm,” Caspian said slowly, the twinkle in his eyes belying the formality of the words. “If we were to occupy the Royal hunting box south of Glasswater…”

“You two are plotting!” Eustace accused, watching matched mischievous smiles break across two handsome faces. “What brews? Come on, you’ve _got_ to tell us!”

“And I seem to recall a promise made on our westward voyage, my Lord Captain, that once we were safe established home, you would attempt to educate a motley assortment of _abominable lubbers_ in the mysteries of seamanship,” the King continued, apparently unheeding of the interruption. Drinian arched a sooty brow.

“Aye, Caspian. I may well have threatened you with that.”

It was, he considered, quite ridiculous. A wild goose chase of the first order.

Yet it was irresistible. The old friends regarded each other for a silent moment. Drinian felt his lips twitch.

King and Captain alike broke into giddy peals of laughter.

“The _Lady Elizabetha_?” Caspian sputtered. 

“Ideal for both purposes,” Drinian chortled. “So long as she’s commanded by a competent captain! No halyard to bear the royal banner…”

“A positive boon for the preservation of anonymity!”

“A sailing lesson that strays into Archenlandish waters?” asked Edmund, his eyes beginning to shine. “Could we? Really?”

“Why not?” demanded the King. “We have had no leisure since our return from the Eastern Sea, and Liliandil really must show herself south of Glasswater village soon! Yourself and Daniela have been no less under the popular eye than we, Drinian: and you would of course accompany us, the lodge lying as it does in your wife’s own province…”

“If only for the use of our boat, eh?” The ancient hunting hall in open country, as close as Caspian’s ancestors had ever dared venture to the sea, was a delightful retreat, long prized by the House of Telmar and its friends. Even without the additional thrill of a treasure hunt, the prospect of a stay there would be appealing. Caspian beamed.

“I shall order the place made ready tomorrow,” he announced cheerfully.

“Later today, more likely,” Drinian corrected, stifling a massive yawn. The King contrived to look suitably contrite.

“I forget, you were at your consultations with the shipwrights before daybreak. Come, friends, our gallant admiral wants his bed!”

“Your Majesty’s consideration overwhelms me,” said Drinian dryly. Caspian rolled his eyes.

“You always _are_ sarcastic when tired, old friend! But you may show proper appreciation for my compassion when we come to tell Trumpkin of our intentions,” he teased. Leaving Drinian to crush out the candles Caspian shepherded the children back onto deck, gulping in the clean tang of the night air after the stuffiness of the closed cabin. “Since his regency, he takes the burdens of sovereignty so much more _seriously_ than I! Goodnight, Peridan! We shall leave you to your watch in peace.”

The sailor had been of the Dawn Treader’s company throughout the great Eastern adventure. He was familiar as few Narnians could be with the easy condescension of his King, but this midnight descent had still unnerved him. Instinct turned his eyes immediately to those of his commander. 

Drinian grinned. “The whims of royalty know no timetables, Peridan,” he said lightly. “Goodnight! Now: can Your Majesty manage the ladder in darkness, or should I descend first?”

“The senior officer present – to whit, my Lord High Admiral’s Grace – is _always_ the last to leave his ship,” Caspian reminded him solemnly, already halfway down the swinging ladder. Everyone laughed.

The whole idea – cruising about a hundred insignificant islands, far from the safety of Narnia’s shores, in pursuit of a treasure that might exist only in the imagination of the bards – was absurd. But Drinian was willing to confess, to himself at least, that he was utterly elated by it. 

He must, he decided as he grasped the gig’s tiller and gave the order to his friends at the oars, be becoming almost as crazy as Caspian!


	5. An Expedition Is Prepared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even royal personages can’t simply sail off over the distant horizon without a little preparation. Not with Captain Drinian in command…

Daniela’s gentle interrogation of Lady Herringbone took up an entire morning - and the best part of that lively young woman’s patience – without obtaining a single scrap of information that might be of help to a party of treasure hunters.

“The box was given to Alicia’s several-times great-grandmother by an Archenlandish suitor, probably a sailor, more than two hundred years ago,” she recited, pacing the cosy Queen’s Parlour on the landward side of Cair Paravel much as her husband was accustomed (Caspian noticed, much amused by the comparison) to stride about the decks of his beloved flagship. “His family were – perhaps – mariners by tradition.

“Alicia values the wretched thing for its _romantic history_ : she cares nothing for the facts of the matter. She prattled endlessly about her ancestor’s _pining away_ for the love of her sailor – which clearly she did _not_ , else how would Alicia herself be here? For the parchment you discovered King Edmund, she feels only disgust. And how could you _bear_ to even _touch_ such a _mouldy_ and _horrid_ old thing?”

The last was squeaked in an accent of sheer horror so far removed from Daniela’s own poised manner that it reduced half her audience to a fit of helpless giggles. Breaking into her first real smile since escaping the Herringbone household, the lady herself perched on the wooden arm of her husband’s chair, draping an arm across his shoulders. “Now, this holiday Your Majesty has been so kind as to invite my lord and I to join… dare I request it be undertaken as a matter of urgency? Three hours of Alicia have frayed my poor nerves to snapping point!”

“Your sacrifice for our great cause will not be forgotten, my dear Daniela,” Caspian assured her solemnly. The musical laughter of Narnia’s second lady rang out.

“Your Majesty is too generous! When do we leave for Royal Lodge?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Caspian decreed. “Drinian, the boat…”

“Can be sailed down by two moderately competent mariners. Daniela…”

“Promoted to Mate already,” she marvelled, drawing the teasing applause of their friends. “Oh, I know my place, Queen Lucy! I shall never, like Zarn, attempt to usurp my Captain’s place.”

“I should think not!” cried the Star’s Daughter as the Captain himself led their laughter. In high spirits the party broke up: Drinian and Daniela riding for Etinsmere to prepare the small sailing boat he had built as a boy with his father; Caspian to his study and the documents Cornelius insisted must be signed at once; and Liliandil and the children to the orchard for a stroll and an animated debate on the best method to be used when searching for a (quite possibly non-existent) treasure hoard.

*

Throughout their slow ride south, passing verdant woodland and flower-spangled meadow Trumpkin kept his stolid donkey at the side of his master’s great bay charger, determined to make his dissatisfaction with this newest example of regal folly quite plain. “And what’s to be done should Calormen attack in Your Majesty’s absence?” he asked, for the fifth time in an hour. Edmund, who had been anticipating a leisurely amble through familiar sunny countryside, found himself heartily wishing he might have sailed to Glasswater with Drinian instead.

“The Tisroc has made overtures of friendship since we returned from the Eastern Ocean,” Caspian pointed out again, the effort of keeping his temper made apparent by the pained clench of his jaw. “Overtures which We, with the full endorsement of Our Royal Council – of which I believe your Lordship _is_ still a member – have returned in kind. What cause has his empire to strike against us this week?”

“No man ever lived long by trusting Tisrocs. Whistles and whirligigs, don’t Their Majesties know that well enough of old?”

“They shan’t even know in Tashbaan that Caspian’s left Cair Paravel, he’ll be home so soon: unless we find the treasure, of course,” Edmund argued sensibly. “It’s hardly another voyage to the World’s End, D.L.F, and they were quiet as lambs through that!”

“Glad am I Your Majesty made no mention of _Mice_ in the present context,” Caspian murmured. Lucy gave him a sad smile.

“How Reep would have loved this expedition,” she sighed. Gingerly unwrapping one hand from the reins, Eustace gave her arm a kindly pat.

“Aye.” The stern set of the King’s features softened. “However, King Edmund speaks wisely: and We had the fullest confidence in Our Regent during those long months at sea. Why! Does not Queen Susan’s Great Horn still hang in our vaults, in readiness for any emergency?”

Trumpkin harrumphed rather louder than might be thought appropriate for a subject disputing with his sovereign. “And Cornelius swears he taught the lad statesmanship!” he groused in what was meant to be a whisper. “Calls ‘imself a half-blood Dwarf! Half- _wit_ might be closer, if you ask me!”

“I do not recall, Sir Dwarf, that anybody did.” Caspian leaked the reproof from the corner of his mouth, careful not to diminish the smile he gave to a family of excited Hedgehogs skipping from the bushes to give him three shrill cheers. “And if you’ve naught better to do on a fine day than grumble and object, you might very well have stayed at home!”

“Treasure hunting,” Trumpkin mumbled, his leathery cheek turned a shade of mottled puce that clashed nastily with the copper fire of his beard and hair. “’s about as fit an occupation for a king as – as…”

“Venturing to the World’s End?” Queen Liliandil suggested gently. The Dwarf grinned, mischief flaring in his black button eyes.

“Begging Your Majesty’s pardon but ‘is Grace brought something back to make that mad piece o’ gallivantin’ worthwhile,” he said fervently. “Cornelius and the Badger were sure he’d determined never to wed, just to spite ‘em!”

“Ah, but such a matter as selecting a bride ought never to be made without great deliberation,” Caspian teased.

“Three weeks, wasn’t it?” asked Edmund, winking at Eustace.

“Oh, but you had all the time we were sailing from the Star’s Island to the World’s End and back, didn’t you, Caspian dear?” Lucy cried. Edmund’s nose wrinkled.

“Ugh! You’re turning into Susan,” he complained. Lucy looked alarmed.

“Was that romantic?” she asked worriedly. “I’m not growing up, am I?”

“Not that much,” Eustace promised, laughing. “And anyway, you’re right. Drinian swears Caspian thought about you all the way to the End of the World and back, Liliandil.”

“Respond with caution, Sire,” the Queen advised. Her husband offered a small bow.

“My friend is much too perceptive for a self-proclaimed _rough tar_ ,” he parried, urging his mount to a canter as the woods opened out onto a sweeping lawn leading up a gentle slope to a gracious, honey-gold manor. “Glasswater House, at last!”

“Good-oh!” Eustace gave his ambling cob a kick that earned him three reluctant strides at a canter. “If nothing else, Daniela’s promised us a jolly good dinner tonight! Don’t _dawdle_ so, Ed – I’m famished!”

*

They parted company after an early breakfast: the Dwarf turning north as they clattered onto a narrow southern pathway, crossing open country to reach the rustic hunting box built by the first King Caspian and extended over centuries by his successors. Backed by rolling hills, it offered from its attic windows the merest glimpse of glinting ocean, and a narrow footpath led through shady orchards and beyond well-stocked fish ponds to a small bay where, her anchor dug securely into the silvery sand, the sailboat _Lady Elizabetha_ awaited her novice crew.

“The current runs southerly all the way to Tashbaan, Your Majesties, and we’ve favourable winds at this time o’ year,” Drinian announced cheerfully, running a loving hand along the length of his vessel’s freshly-painted hull. “But – at least until I’m confident you shan’t capsize my lady – we shall stay within sight of land, I think.”

Caspian rolled his eyes at the children. “Your faith in us is inspiring, my Lord,” he said drily. Drinian made his courtliest reverence.

“Your Majesty did not receive a succession of lectures before leaving his castle on the capital importance of _not_ drowning a Narnian King,” he growled.

“Ah.” Caspian bit his lip, and it seemed to Lucy that Daniela was openly smiling. “The same one you heard the night before the Dawn Treader sailed east, I suppose?”

“Aye.” There again, she decided, Drinian looked rather more amused than annoyed. “I did suggest Trufflehunter might join our expedition to watch over Your Majesty in person, but he tells me Badgers are not fond of salt water…”

“I’m jolly well planning to keep out of it myself, thanks,” Eustace told him firmly. “Is she quite safe, just perched on the beach like this?”

“The tides run much lower in these southern provinces. Dig out the anchor and help me haul her down to the water Caspian – boys. You’re still determined, Ma’am, to remain dry-shod?”

“I am, my Lord.” Liliandil hung back as, grunting with effort, they hauled the boat bodily into gently lapping waves. “However: when your crew are deemed proficient and the Fair Maid’s treasure has been found, I shall insist on sailing with you to see it! Daniela, if you’re not required to assist in the training of these hapless landsfolk, shall we return to the lodge?”

“Gladly.” While Caspian kissed his consort’s hand, the Mistress of Etinsmere shot her lord a mischievous grin. “The Captain must feel himself free to cuss his incompetent crew without fear of whom he’ll offend, after all! There are dry biscuits under the benches, should anyone feel the stirrings of seasickness.”

“In waters flat as any pond?” Never himself afflicted by that complaint, Drinian was notoriously short in sympathy for those less fortunate. “Once she’s clear of the bottom scramble in - and touch nothing until I give the word. Yes, King Edmund, that _does_ include those tails o’ rope! They’re called rigging, and until you can knot and splice ‘em right in a howling gale at midnight, you dare not call yourself a sailor. Move for’ard, Queen Lucy. I’ll take the tiller. All set?”

Their shouts of eager assent were the last his four companions had breath to offer until nightfall, for inside an hour Drinian was loudly protesting himself defeated by their general ineptitude. “I thought the first volunteers for the Dawn Treader a lubberly lot but at least they knew south from east without a fellow guiding their hands,” he grumbled, yanking the tiller from Eustace’s hand to divert their craft onto her intended course. “And Caspian, the sail’s there to catch the breeze, not dress yourself in! Really, you may not have had us over yet, but ‘tis hardly for the want o’ trying! Try to remember all of you: the oars cut through the _top_ of the wave. You’re pushing us along, not fishing for oysters!”

The second day was better. By evening it took them a mere five minutes to reef and furl the sail tight against an impending storm, although their instructor appeared less than impressed by their celebration. “As well it was in my head and not those wisps o’ cloud off the headland,” he muttered as they flopped in various states of pained exhaustion around him. “And that we’re aboard a sailing smack, not a carrack o’ war!”

“Ouf! It’s all very well for _you_ ,” Eustace moaned, scowling at the powerful muscles bulging under the sleeves of Drinian’s loose shirt. “We’ve only got small arms, and all that pulling on ropes makes them ache something rotten!”

“Then hauling on the ropes will be of lasting benefit to us all.” Gingerly massaging his biceps, Caspian gave answer before his friend could select one more cutting. “Here Edmund - a cloth to wipe your brow! And you know quite well, my Lord High Admiral, that were the weather not set perfectly fair you should allow us no farther from shore than Queen Lucy could paddle in safety!”

“That’s likely enough to be true,” Drinian acknowledge lazily. “Now, who wants to steer us ashore?”

Four voices cried out together. “Edmund, then,” he decided, abandoning his place in the stern for an oarsman’s seat with obvious regret. “Caspian, Lucy, unfurl the sail. Eustace, a sounding from the bow every half-minute if you please. You’ve all improved today. I might make mariners of you yet!”

“Can we set out for the islands tomorrow? Oh please, can we?”

“Steady on, Lu! We’ve not gone beyond the Hare’s Muzzle yet,” Edmund protested, turning to peer at the narrow headland to the north Drinian had set as the limit for their maiden voyages. “All the same, _can’t_ we go beyond sight of land tomorrow? We can’t get into that much trouble, surely!”

It was a measure of his satisfaction with their progress, they agreed, that Drinian chose not to dispute the point, and over the next two days they stretched far out into deeper water. Knotting and splicing the running rig became routine, though the rope burned hands wet from constant spray and blistered by hours spent at the oars. They took turns at the tiller, bringing the lively little _Lady Elizabetha_ onto new headings at her master’s command (always unexpected, and always barked with the same relish he showed on the Dawn Treader’s decks, so Caspian complained); and accustomed themselves to the difficulties of managing the large canvas sail.

Only once did they come to grief, scrambling to secure the sail against a sudden squall. As Edmund ducked under his sister’s arm to snap a loose tail of rope he cannoned into Caspian, already off-balance as he fought to bind a reef-knot. On a startled yelp the King toppled over the side, throwing up a mighty splash that soaked his friends as he vanished beneath the waves.

“Man overboard!” Eustace hollered unnecessarily. “I’ve always wanted to shout that,” he added, quite unrepentant under Lucy’s reproachful stare. “What do we do now, Drinian?”

“Boys, hold her steady on the oars.” The King was an excellent swimmer, but that knowledge did nothing to quell the panicked sensations in his subject’s gut. “Lucy, take the helm and _don’t_ let her drift from station! Caspian!”

“Quite safe.” He broke the surface a few yards off their starboard bow, shaking himself like a great golden puppy before reaching them in a pair of powerful strokes to grasp Drinian’s proffered hand. “Aslan’s Mane! I hardly expected it to be so _cold_!”

“The instant he’s aboard put the helm hard over for shore, Queen Lucy.” Fright made the words harsh, but she merely nodded, concentrating on not squirming away while Caspian, ungainly as a landed porpoise in his sodden clothes, flopped in over the bow. “Edmund, the instant we’re ashore, run ahead and have them light a fire in the King’s Parlour – and send someone with towels to our mooring! I _know_ the sun’s warm, Caspian you dullard, but wake with a chill tomorrow and you shan’t come treasure hunting in any vessel _I_ command! Here – take my cloak.”

“Thank you.” Senseless to protest, especially with the wind’s subtle slice chilling the wet linen that plastered itself to his skin. Caspian tucked the sweeping dark green garment carefully around himself, willing his teeth not to chatter as the _Lady Elizabetha_ coasted up the beach. “I suppose this will postpone our adventures by another day, my Lord?”

“Providing Your Majesty agrees not to sniff and sneeze the whole way, I see no reason to delay longer.” Pausing long enough for their excited cheering to die down, Drinian pronounced the highest compliment it was in his power to bestow. “Your Majesties – aye, and you, Master Eustace – will deserve the name of mariners yet!”


	6. Five Friends In A Boat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're off to seek a snarling cat. What could possibly go wrong...

First light saw them struggling down the sandy spit where the boat was moored, all laden with baskets of food and rolls of blankets. Lucy clambered aboard; Edmund and Eustace seated themselves at the oars amidships; while Caspian and Drinian splashed out into the shallows, heaving and shoving the little vessel until her keel was free of the sand.

Drinian steadied her at the stern, enabling Caspian to scramble awkwardly aboard before vaulting lightly to his place at the helm. “We ought to be back by nightfall tomorrow,” he informed Liliandil and Daniela who hovered, just keeping their toes dry, at the water’s edge.

“Good luck!” called the Queen, waving vigorously.

“And don’t forget to come and fetch us when you find the treasure!” added her friend.

“We promise!” shouted the three children as Lucy almost tumbled overboard in the excitement of departure. “What do we do now, Drinian?” Edmund wanted to know.

“Take the oars with the boys, Caspian,” came the instant reply, half-drowned by Lucy’s shriek at the violent motion of the boat under their shifting of position. “Easy, you’ll have us over!”

“All very well for _you_ to complain,” answered the King, digging his oar deep through the calm water and creating a most unnecessary splash. “Lounging there playing galley master!”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to know we’re being steered by a chap that won’t run us straight into the first coastal outcrop,” said Edmund, releasing his grip of the oar sharply as his cousin’s over-enthusiastic pulling stung his hands. “Steady on, Scrubb! We’re supposed to slice _through_ the top of the waves, remember!”

“Sorry,” huffed Eustace, who was already beginning to turn slightly pink with exertion. “I say! We don’t have to row all the way, do we?”

“Both the current and the prevailing winds – such as they are – favour a southerly course,” Drinian consoled him, allowing his free hand to trail over the side into the silken cool of the sea. “Now: can you set full sail, or must I do everything myself?”

Four howls of outrage greeted the enquiry, and for the next five minutes the expert mariner was able to lay back in fits of laughter as his companions tripped an ungainly dance around the stout mast, most of their newly-acquired competence forgotten in their excitement. “Eustace, do you intend to hang Caspian?” he cried, when the boy contrived to wrap a tail of the rigging that ought to have been securely tied away around the other’s neck. “Lion bless me, I should’ve done it myself! Nobody move!”

In a trice he had disentangled the King and unwrapped a protesting Edmund from the body of the sail. “Lucy, take the tiller: and stand ready, she’ll fairly leap when the wind catches,” he instructed. “Now if you’re all _quite_ finished trying to shred an almost-new sail, we can begin again.”

“Oh!” cried Lucy as the great creamy sheet filled with a bang and the _Lady Elizabetha_ began to surge in response. “She’s alive!”

“And there’s a cry to touch a sailor’s heart,” Drinian murmured approvingly as he took her former place at the bow. “Can you hold her steady on this heading? Don’t scowl, Eustace! There’ll be time enough for everyone to have his turn.”

The promise was kept. Every thirty minutes the helmsman was changed, and whenever the conditions demanded it Drinian set a different person the task of trimming the sail. “You, my Lord, are enjoying this,” Caspian accused.

“Seldom do I have leisure to enjoy the sea without working,” agreed his friend, stretching a long arm toward the closest picnic basket. “Anyone else care for an apple? All right, all right, I’m not as deaf as all that! You’d think I was the other side o’ the country, Eustace!”

By the time they had munched their fruit the great bulk of Stormness Head could be clearly discerned, its peak shrouded in steely cloud. “Almost there!” cried Lucy joyfully. 

“Only half the way, as a matter of fact,” Caspian corrected before Drinian could open his mouth. “I happen to know the Achenlandish Archipelago is at least as far again as we’ve come!”

“Well done, Caspian. Edmund, take us a degree or two more seaward, if you please. We’re too close to the shore at this point for my liking!”

“I can’t see the coast!” the boy protested, even as he obeyed. Drinian snorted.

“And what do you take that bluish blur there for? Calormene mist?”

Gingerly Edmund edged the _Lady Elizabetha’s_ bow further east and the sail strained, slapping against the mast hard enough to make Lucy and Caspian jump. “Better?” he asked.

“Aye. There’s always the risk of wreckers lying in wait for lone vessels steering from the safety of Narnian waters hereabout. No offence to your cousin intended Caspian, but his subjects are miserable laggards when it comes to protecting their own seaways.”

“I shall make a point to remind Corin of the fact in my next letter, my Lord,” said the King formally. “And isn’t it my turn to steer yet?”

“I suppose so.” With great reluctance Edmund offered up his place, and for a split second the sailboat wavered before a new hand curled around her tiller. “Just remember there’s no need to go _yanking_ her about. She’s not exactly a big lumbering carrack.”

“I take orders enough from one captain, King Edmund,” said Caspian, with great dignity. “I have no need for further from as paltry a mariner as myself! Do we remain on this heading, Drinian?”

“Aye, Sire. Hold a true course until I tell you otherwise. Now, shall we spin some yarns to pass the time? Someone else, mind! I’ve no desire to set off two treasure hunts in the same week.”

In telling stories (Lucy told of the first visit to Narnia, carefully omitting anything that might have made her brother cringe) and singing they passed the early afternoon, always remaining just beyond a telescope’s range from the coast. It seemed to Caspian that barely half an hour had passed since Stormness Head dropped astern when Edmund, on forward lookout at the point of the bow, let fall a delighted hail. “Land! Look - islands, dead ahead!”

Barely visible on the southern horizon they saw it: less than a mile across and rising barely fifty feet from the water, the northernmost islet of the Archenlandish Archipelago. Behind and around it they were soon detecting dozens more scrub-covered dots. “Now what?” demanded Eustace.

“We cruise around ‘em looking for the snarling cat,” said Edmund as if it were perfectly obvious (which, to Lucy, it was). “Good grief, it’ll take a week! There are _scores_ of them!”

“Most small enough to be around inside ten minutes,” Drinian assured him. “Lucy, are you content to retain the helm? Between the islands we may have to navigate shoals and strong local currents: and some of those channels are narrow!”

“I’m all right,” she said stoutly. “But if I start to panic…”

“I shall assume command. No novice mariner can be expected to have mastered steerage of so much as a coracle in under a week.”

“I’ll wager _he_ managed it,” muttered Caspian, only half in jest.

“Ah, but I’m an Etinsmere, Sire. Sea water in the veins and born cussing like a hardened tar! Lucy, swing us a point to port. See where the water lightens off the starboard bow? The seabed must rise sharply. Edmund, cast out the lead. We’ll find sand and gravel fathoms closer than we should like, I daresay.”

“ _I_ can’t see anything,” both children protested as they obeyed their instructions and found (to nobody’s particular surprise) that their Captain was correct on all points. “Is that not – oh, no, it’s just an ordinary rounded headland,” Lucy added, dropping the finger which had been raised to point. “I suppose it’d be a channel cutting into the rock that would give the cat its mouth, Drinian?”

“Most likely. Very well, surrender the tiller to Edmund now, it’ll do no harm for you all to manage her in these treacherous shallows. And if that’s the water flask you have open Caspian, pass it along. That sun is scorching!”

In due course Edmund moved aside to grant a turn steering to Eustace. And as the sun began to sink against the western horizon that young gentleman, never the most patient, was declaring himself ready to abandon their fruitless search. “It was probably somebody’s old doodle and not a treasure map at all,” he grumbled.

“That’s not what you said this morning,” Edmund pointed out reasonably, while Lucy tried to explain what a _doodle_ might be to two very confused Narnians. “But hadn’t we better start looking for a place to camp? It’s getting chilly, and I’m famished!”

“If we were to cruise that larger collection of islets to the south east?” Caspian suggested, waving in the direction of a cluster of bigger outcrops, some even adorned with a few trees, lying before them. “They’ve better shelter than anything I’ve seen so far! Swing the bow that way, Eustace.”

King of Narnia he might be, but Caspian’s order had to be confirmed by a quick nod from his neighbour on the oarsmen’s bench. Obligingly Eustace turned the _Lady Elizabetha’s_ nose, cutting her through a narrow channel of deeper water toward the cluster. “I say!” he said suddenly, jerking up so hard the boat shuddered alarmingly. “Doesn’t that look like a mast, just poking over the hill to the west there?”

“Where?” Caspian added to the motion by getting up with one hand raised to shield his narrowed eyes. Drinian dodged around him, snatching the tiller from Eustace’s slackened grasp.

“It _is_ a mast,” he said sharply. “Caspian – boys – take the oars. Lucy, stand by with the lead. We’ll need to know the depth beneath us at a second’s notice, should they be keeping as keen a lookout as we ought to have been!”

“We have no reason to imagine them any more hostile than ourselves, my Lord!”

“And no good reason to take a chance, Sire.” It was, Lucy thought, quite instinctive. Whenever Caspian challenged his best friend’s judgement, _Drinian_ became _my Lord_. Equally, when he suspected the slightest danger to his sovereign, _Sire_ and _Your Majesty_ replaced the more familiar _Caspian_ on Drinian’s tongue. “If we should have to run, I’d sooner know we’re ready!”

“If we’re going to, it’ll be soon,” Edmund pointed out, his knuckles whitened by his death grip on the oar’s shaft. “They’re rounding the island – coming straight for us!”

“Caspian, keep your head down and your face forward,” Drinian instructed. “If any of us is to be recognised through a glass, it’s likely to be the reigning King o’ Narnia! Ready with the line, Lucy?”

The strange vessel - a schooner, Edmund noted, of flowing line and unpatched sail – swept around the island’s western point with her bow wave creaming, turned directly toward the unarmed Narnians. An eddy of breeze caught the banner that had hitherto hung limp at her masthead. Drinian yelped what might have been a curse.

“Pull for your lives! Lucy, keep that lead swinging and your head down! Everyone, keep your eyes open for a rocky collar ‘round an island, or a cave - anything we can use for shelter!”

“What ever is the matter?” Lucy squealed, really frightened. “Who _are_ they?”

His mouth pulled into a tight, hard line, Drinian answered as succinctly as any of them could wish, and the single word he uttered froze the blood of all his companions.

“Pirates.”


End file.
